Welcome to the Weekend Writing Warrior blog hop where writers share an 8-10 sentence snippet of their writing, published or unpublished.

My snippet this week comes from the first novella in a series of seven, Shattered Dreams. Drafts for #2 and #3 have been written. The last four plotted out. My plan is to start publishing them by the end of the year. What’s fun is that the characters come in and out of each other’s stories, as they should as one or both of the couples went to school together and all remain in the same community. Oh, and there is a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle that is pulled out of the lake in #1 with a mystery surrounding it.

As a waitress, Shelley is in the diner’s freezer, having propped the door open with a brick. She stumbles, exclaiming out loud, and in the next instant, Mason is there beside her asking if she’s alright. She’s startled, bumping into him, which tips over a bucket of pickles that moves the brick, which seals them in darkness.

SNIPPET:

Shelley heard him moving around. “Where are you?”

“Smile so I can see you.”

Shelley chuckled, unable to help herself. So like Mason to joke when there was a problem.

My snippet this week comes from a current work in progress, Arrested Pleasures, that is the 3rd novella in a series of 7. The first, Shattered Dreams, has been published. Drafts of #2 and #3 have been written. The rest are being plotted out. My goal is that Burning Desire #2 and Arrested Pleasures #3 will be published by the end of the year.

Dan Walker and Anne Martin had one disastrous date in high school and he’s been chasing her ever since, unable to get a yes to another date. It wasn’t often that anyone could get the better of Game Warden Anne, yet he could do it with one word: Dare, a game they had started after that one date. Confronting her head on was the only way he could get her to talk to him. Even back then, other guys were thrown off with her long look that they called cold. He called it curiosity, and he liked it when she was staring at him. Almost like studying a bug under a microscope. He was good with that, her being focused on him.

SNIPPET:

She decided to up the stakes.

“Truth,” she said, calling his bluff. It was chancy and sometimes worked.

He unfolded his arms, put his feet closer together so he stood straighter, and looked down at her. “Dare.”

Damn, he just called her bluff.

“Dare, but only with the Truth first.”

“I get to choose the Dare?”

She started to nod, then hesitated. That was too quick. Damn, he was outsmarting her again. How did he do that? If she said no, he’d call her a coward and heckle her for days. If she said yes… crap, she could be heading for a bucketful of trouble. She took a deep breath and expelled it. “Deal.”

Patty is a good friend and we recently spent a weekend together at a write-in she organized. I was finishing the first draft to the second novella in my Laurel Ridge romance novella series. As a result, because she was looking for a guest for her blog, she liked the idea of my talking about the genesis of the series, which includes already having all seven titles and their covers completed.

High school sweethearts, Mason and Shelley, separated abruptly the day after graduation are confronted by their past a decade later. Now that Mason is back in town, he’s determined to learn what happened. Both are stunned as they uncover the truth. Can their shattered dreams ever be repaired, or is it too late?